At last -- a short (three-minute) video explanation of what LinkedIn is and does...

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Liz Ryan's presentation last week to the Boulder Marketing Group (BMG) was great, full of useful tips for LinkedIn and other online networking sites. However, she didn't mention one juicy tip -- the presence of a 'stealth' option among the Premium (fee-based) membership plans. Here it is...

The Personal Plus membership option is almost nowhere to be seen on the LinkedIn site, perhaps because it's the most affordable of all the paid membership options. It fits nicely between the free-but-limited Personal plan and the $20/month Business plan.

The Plus plan also qualifies as 'stealth' because its signup link is so low-profile as to be nearly invisible, as the top screenshot shows... the vast majority of people will reflexively click on the large, graphical "Upgrade" button and fail to notice the small Plus upgrade link at the bottom of the screen.

For those who click on that big, graphical "Upgrade" button, you'll land on a page that compares the various Premium plans... all but the Personal Plus plan, that is! Unless you hit your browser's Back button and click on that stealth link at the bottom, you won't ever be shown that affordable, $5/month* upgrade option.

One final detail: Once you've upgrade to one of the mainstream Premium plans, you need to contact LinkedIn's customer service team and ask for the downgrade; you can't do it yourself. You've got to revert to a free Personal plan and then upgrade from there, being very careful to click on that stealth link...

That, my friends, is what's called a "sales funnel" -- carefully tailored choices that lead you down the road to the more profitable selections. And since LinkedIn's paid plans can run as high as $200/month, let's not speak too loudly about that Personal Plus plan, eh?
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At next week's March 22nd meeting of the Boulder Marketing Group (BMG), Liz Ryan will talk about the new career art of online networking. Liz is the author of Happy About Online Networking, a national speaker on the topic, and the CEO of WorldWIT, the world's largest online community for professional women. Here's some of what she has to say about LinkedIn...

"If you are job-seeking, you need to join LinkedIn, an essential job-search tool. If you’re not on a job search but you’re into online networking; or want to acquire new partners or clients; or otherwise want to rev up your networking activity level, you should likewise become a LinkedIn user, in my view. All that being said, there are some iron-clad rules for polite and professional use of the network... Read More...

 
I still have my autographed copy of Guy Kawasaki's book, The Macintosh Way, from the early '90s. Back then, I was volunteering 20 hours a week as the president of the local Macintosh users group, the Boulder Mac Maniacs, and Guy was a demigod walking amongst us. We adored him.

I'm glad to see Guy is still out there evangelizing, although now it's more for LinkedIn and the whole Entrepreneur 3.0 phenomena. He doesn't cite his sources, but here are some significant-sounding statistics he quotes on LinkedIn...

"The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven."

"The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes."

"People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five."

"All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees..."

These stats are just the preface to Guy's blog article on Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn. Enjoy. Read More...

Business 2.0 magazine’s December issue has an excellent article on LinkedIn that does a good job of explaining the basic value proposition of this smoking hot online service.

Not surprisingly, the article focuses heavily on the Silicon Valley power users that have made LI what it is today -- a rapidly growing, highly focused tool for business networking.

And what a great business networking tool for shut-ins, the shy types (like me) and the geographically dispersed! Read More...

 
Scott Allen, over at LinkedIntelligence, has compiled a nice list of Dave Taylor's best articles on LinkedIn, on such topics as...

How do I figure out my LinkedIn Profile URL?
How do I use LinkedIn to find a job?
How can I make my LinkedIn profile public?
How do I invite someone to join my LinkedIn network?
How do I import a contact list into LinkedIn?
How do I add web links to my LinkedIn Profile?
How can I get more LinkedIn invitations?

...and several more. Visit LinkedIntelligence for the full list, with links to each article. Read More...

 
Another great Dave Taylor article on how to use LinkedIn to maximum advantage...

Etiquette for LinkedIn and the Professional Networking World [excerpts]

"...If we've learned that it's important to be polite when using email, it's even truer in the social networking sphere. Here are ten tips for establishing yourself as a well-mannered online networker, when using LinkedIn:

1) Create a user-friendly profile.
2) Invite true friends - or at least, true acquaintances - to connect.
3) When you make a request, be clear about your intentions.
4) Reciprocity is a wonderful thing, and gratitude is key.
5) Pass along requests promptly, or say why you won't.
6) Avoid the boilerplate text, if you can.
7) Don't abuse your network.
8) Don't invent history to acquire colleagues.
9) Play by the rules.
10) Value relationships over transactions.

Read the full article. It's full of wisdom, empathy and common decency. Read More...

Dave Taylor has been online for a looooong time, helping people understand the latest & greatest technical developments. Here's just one example, focused on LinkedIn, the online networking tool...

"Q: Dear Dave - I need some help. I've joined LinkedIn and now want to find other people in Colorado who can help me find work. I've a background in computer networking and am a civilian employee of the Air Force, but I'm pretty new to LinkedIn. Do you have some advice for me?"

"Dave Taylor: Thanks for your question. I have a number of family members who have in the past been civilian employees of the military, so I know your situation pretty well. You're the first to be jettisoned if the flight gets turbulent, so it's smart to do some networking on your own behalf through systems like LinkedIn. But, as you say, LinkedIn can be a bit intimidating for new folk, so I'd be happy to take you on a brief tour of how I use it to make new connections online..." Read More...